An Unexpected Huckleberry Picnic
A timber claim worker in the mountains above Dayton comes face-to-face with a 250-pound visitor while foraging for berries.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
While William Bandy of East Sumach Street was enjoying a delicious repast of huckleberries on his timber claim above Dayton Friday morning, he casually glanced over the bushes because of a slight noise when his eye rested with startling clearness on a huge black bear not ten feet away, making his morning meal off the same patch. The bear espied Mr. Bandy at the same instant. The surprise was mutual and the two stood eyeing each other for a few seconds. Mr. Bandy suddenly remembered that he had his Winchester target rifle along and hastily grabbing it, he commenced pumping leaden pellets at the black shape as it started at an ambling gait in the opposite direction. Two shots were fired without any apparent effect, but the third struck a vital spot and the bear fell dead. Mr. Bandy, who returned to Walla Walla Saturday, brought the front foot along and described the bear as weighing in the neighborhood of 250 pounds. Huckleberries in the mountains above Dayton are rapidly ripening and numerous bears in search of the delicious berries are beginning to come out of the mountains in considerable numbers. Campers from Dayton have been much annoyed by the boldness of the animals coming around camp at night in search of something to eat. Mr. Bandy's claim is located on a prong of the Touchet about 12 miles above Dayton.
“The surprise was mutual and the two stood eyeing each other for a few seconds.”
Conflicts between berry-foragers and black bears remain a classic feature of late-summer life in the Blue Mountains. While few modern hikers carry a Winchester target rifle for protection, the tension between recreational access and the presence of local wildlife is a story that repeats every July in the Walla Walla region.
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